Membership sites 101: What they are, how they work, and why you need one
When Bonnie Christine started her pattern design business in 2010, she wasn’t planning to start a membership for aspiring creatives. She just wanted to do something that made her heart sing.
Flash forward 14+ years, and her offer funnel ends with an exclusive VIP membership for graduates of her courses. Today, her membership site serves 6,800+ aspiring surface pattern designers worldwide, generating predictable revenue while she sleeps.
This transformation isn't unique to Bonnie–we've seen it happen thousands of times across the 13,000+ communities hosted on Circle. All thanks to the magic of recurring revenue built-in to membership models.
A membership site offers exclusive content, services, or community access to members who pay a one-time or recurring fee for ongoing benefits. It often has two components:
- The first is the internal membership platform, where you store all your content, such as the content library, forms, events, and courses for member access.
- The second part is the external membership website, which is the marketing side. This is where potential members will read about your membership or business offers and sign up.
This article aims to ensure you know exactly what a membership site is, the benefits and drawbacks you should consider, and how to create one from scratch.
We’ll also cover some of the reasons entrepreneurs and creators may choose to start memberships, such as unpredictable revenue patterns, the difficulty of building long-term customer relationships, and how memberships can unlock your time beyond 1:1 services or time-intensive product creation.
What makes a membership site different from other websites and communities?
Regular websites often feature blogs, product listings, or static information all for free and supported by ads or sponsorships. A key difference in a membership website is that it often offers content tiers, such as:
- Free access: Visitors can view basic content or get a preview without paying.
- Paid access: Subscribers enter a private member’s area to find advanced resources or community features.
- Bonus levels: Some membership site platforms have tiered plans with varying perks.
Different types of membership sites
A membership site can be just about anything you dream up. However, they typically fall under three main types.
Courses
These types of membership websites primarily deliver educational content in structured modules. The member either pays a single fee for unlimited access to courses or a per-course fee. The course topics can range greatly, from baking courses to high-tech computing courses.
A great example of this is Ali Abdaal's Part-Time YouTuber Academy. This membership site helps transform aspiring creators into successful content entrepreneurs.
Communities
These membership sites focus on peer-to-peer discussions and shared interests. For example, it could be a collection of car enthusiasts or a group of computer programmers sharing information and experiences.
For an example, check out Building a Second Brain's vibrant knowledge management community. Members share their personal productivity breakthroughs in this community.
Content Libraries
These membership sites provide an archive of specialized assets that their members can use. These can include stock images, workout plans, research papers, swipe files, study or survey results, videos, and more.
Notion's Templates Gallery membership, which allows subscribers to access premium workspace templates, is a good example of this type of membership site.
Benefits of building a membership site
What’s the real reason to start a membership–and pick a solid provider membership platform?
- Recurring revenue: Subscriptions provide predictable monthly or yearly income.
- Scalability potential: You can add more paying members without substantially raising costs or effort.
- Building valuable customer relationships: Engagement is one of the biggest value-adds of a membership, so members stay longer and become more loyal.
- Content monetization opportunities: Videos, podcasts, and PDFs can be repurposed, updated, and resold as part of the membership.
- Automated business operations: Using a solid membership site platform helps you automate tasks like billing, content drip schedules, and community moderation.
Common membership site models
Membership websites come in all shapes and sizes. Some common membership site models are:
- All-access content libraries: Users pay a flat fee for access to various materials, such as e-books, videos, or templates. This model is great if you have a large content library and want to monetize it, as well as focus on continuously updating the material.
- Tiered membership levels: Different user groups get progressively more benefits. For example, a basic plan could include access to articles, while a pro plan adds live webinars and direct Q&A with experts.
- Online courses with community: Some membership site platforms include lessons, quizzes, and an active forum. To see an example of this style of membership site, check out the SuperDataScience Membership site.
- Premium community access: A membership site can also focus on conversation, coaching, and networking. Elsynergy is a great example of how a specialized community can thrive around a shared goal, which can include learning new skills or building your network.
- Hybrid models: These membership sites span several site models, such as combining courses with community and networking capabilities. A great example of this hybrid model is Angelica Automates. Its membership includes training, discussions, and updates, giving its members multiple engagement points.
Essential features you need to build a successful membership site
When looking at how to create a membership site, focus on these foundational elements for your website and your platform:
Member management
You must have a proper member onboarding system, as this helps new members understand the full value of the site from the moment they sign up. Member retention strategies are another important feature, as these help you address concerns leading to cancellations and potentially retain members considering unsubscribing.
Circle's Marketing Hub helps you manage, attract, and retain members using email marketing, automation, and relationship management tools.
Content delivery systems
Without a content delivery system, there’s no way to share your content, courses, presentations, or events.
- Circle’s Courses provides a directory of your courses, a sales page, structured modules, and your actual lessons.
- Circle’s Events is a great option for scheduled webinars or online workshops. With Circle Events, you can easily launch an event calendar and landing page for your events. You can also create live rooms for up to 30 participants and live streams to up to 1,000 attendees.
Community engagement tools
Discussion boards or forums keep members talking and exchanging value. This allows your membership site to remain engaging even if you’re not actively posting.
Circle’s Discussions function can help with this. Discussions offer the ability to host engaging conversations with members on important topics, curate a feed to keep members updated, and moderate discussions so they remain on-topic and appropriate.
Payment processing
Automating subscriptions and renewals saves you time and keeps revenue flowing without you having to switch between multiple systems, payment processors, and spreadsheets. Having the payments right on your membership site without redirecting members to a third party also builds member confidence.
Circle’s Payments makes all of this possible by giving you an embedded payment interface that integrates subscription options. This allows you to offer monthly, quarterly, or annual tiers without juggling separate billing software. You can also set up free trials to give potential members a taste of what you offer.
Analytics and tracking
Analytics help you keep track of your overall signups, revenue, and many other important metrics of success.
Circle’s Analytics gives you an easy-to-understand report of all your important metrics, such as total members, daily and monthly active users (DAU and MAU), inactive members, member leaderboards, member activity scores, engagement, and much more.
Common challenges and solutions for memberships
Even the most successful membership sites run into challenges. Overcoming them is key to your success. Below are some frequent challenges and ways to address them:
Retaining members
Keeping subscribers engaged for months or years is tough because some members can lose interest with time or simply don’t have the time to engage due to their busy lives. A great way to retain members is to focus on the one or two types of content they engage with the most and develop a system to release these regularly enough to retain engagement. As you expand your content, you may encounter bandwidth issues, which is when you may need to consider scaling your team to satisfy member needs.
You can also counter any membership loss by developing a solid membership funnel strategy that constantly keeps new members coming in to fill the gaps departing members leave.
"Keeping your members happy is like keeping a good friend around—it takes way less effort than making a new one from scratch! In fact, it can cost five to seven times more to bring in a new member than to keep an existing one engaged.
The secret? Give them what they love, consistently. When people feel seen, valued, and entertained, they stick around. So, instead of chasing new faces, focus on making your current members feel like longtime friends—they’ll reward you with loyalty (and maybe even bring more friends along)."
- Pedro Hernandes, Sr. Community Manager, Circle
Continue to create new content
Continuously creating new videos, articles, or podcasts can be overwhelming. Fortunately, it doesn’t need to be. You can repurpose existing material, invite guest experts, encourage member-led events, or schedule Q&A sessions instead of constantly releasing fresh content.
Keeping members engaged
Some sites stagnate when users lose interest in group discussions. You can keep members engaged by encouraging them to share achievements, post questions, or run peer-led sessions. You can also use gamification to encourage engagement that feels more like a game than interaction!
Solving technical problems
Content creators aren’t always technical gurus, so digging into the nuts and bolts of a membership site may not be in your original skill set. Fortunately, sites like Circle handle the technical side of it and give you a beautiful interface that allows you to focus on your content and member experience.
And if you're looking for a membership platform to grow your community?
You're in the right place.
Circle brings together your members, discussions, events, courses, and content—all in one place, under your own brand. Plus, you get access to our customer community full of handy resources and over 13,000 community builders on the same journey as you.
